Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Smith’s team makes last-ditch appeal to halt nitrogen execution: Updates

The last time Alabama attempted to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith, he was one of four death row inmates who were set to be killed across four states in just over 48 hours.

As Josh Marcus wrote for The Independent’s End the Death Penalty campaign at the time, the separate cases showed how capital punishment states struggle with the basics of swift, humane executions.

Then, Alabama botched Smith’s execution when it failed to a suitable vein in which to deliver the lethal drugs.

His execution by nitrogen hypoxia is due to be carried out by officials in the same chamber at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, on Thursday.

Read Josh’s full story from November 2022 below.

Dr Jeff Hood told The Independent in an interview before heading to William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, that Smith’s support team were “clinging to one another” for solace, after last ditch appeals to halt the execution were rejected.

Led by senior reporter Josh Marcus, The Independent embarked on a longterm project examining the shortcomings of capital punishment as an effective crime prevention tool, and as a morally abhorrent act of violence by the state.

As Josh wrote when The Independent joined the campaign: “Since America’s execution fever peaked in the late 1990s, US states have been slowly banning or pausing the practice, joining, in piecemeal fashion, most other developed countries which have long outlawed capital punishment.

“But after a 17-year pause, Donald Trump restarted federal executions, and 13 people were killed during the second half of 2020. That’s the most federal inmates put to death under one president in the last 120 years, likely in a cold-blooded attempt to score political points. Despite years of Black Lives Matter activism, here was the most powerful man in the world returning to a policy shown by numerous studies to disproportionately kill people of colour.”

The campaign attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to its Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty, including Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson.

On Wednesday night, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall welcomed decisions from the US Supreme Court and a federal appeals court to decline to intervene in the execution.

“While Smith will likely appeal to the US Supreme Court, my office stands ready to carry on the fight for Liz Sennett,” Mr Marshall said in a statement.

“I remain confident that the Supreme Court will come down on the side of justice, and that Smith’s execution will be carried out tomorrow.”

On 25 January, Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) officials will strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney in Holman Correctional Facility and pump his lungs full of pure nitrogen.

Having survived one horribly botched execution, Smith faces being put to death by a wholly untested method that has been decried as inhumane by death penalty experts and deemed unfit even for killing most mammals.

So experimental is “nitrogen asphyxia” as a form of capital punishmentthat ADOC has required Smith’s spiritual adviser Reverend Jeff Hood to sign a waiver that forces him to maintain a distance of at least three feet (.9m) during the execution.

The 58-year-old convicted killer is due to be put to death during a 30-hour window beginning on Thursday, in an untested execution method that his lawyers and experts have decried as cruel and experimental.

On Wednesday night, the US Supreme Court declined to stay his execution after his lawyers had claimed Smith was at undue risk of a tortuous death that would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, violating the 8th and 14th amendments.